Archive - Jul 2005

General Council Chair Amina Mohamad will announce a 'rigorous and regimented' work program leading to an ambitious outcome at the World Trade Organization Hong Kong ministerial conference this December

The WTO General Council meeting ended today without any of the original anticipated results of additional agreements (or 'first approximations') on agriculture,non-agricultural market access, services and 'development issues.'

Key members of the World Trade Organization yesterday vowed to launch a make-or-break next phase of Doha Development Agenda consultations starting in September to arrive at full modalities in agriculture, market access for industrial products and services

Congressional approval of a trade pact with six small Central American countries nudged forward the Bush administration's free-trade agenda. But the close vote and bitter fight underscored anxiety about the pace of globalization and clouded prospects for approval of future deals.

The highlight of yesterday's one-year assessment of the Doha Development Agenda farm negotiations focused mostly on the evaluation by agriculture negotiations chairman Tim Groser

At 12:03 am on July 28th, the House of Representatives approved the Central America-Dominican Republic-United States Free Trade Agreement, CAFTA. CAFTA, which would expand NAFTA to Central America and the Dominican Republic, would devastate farmers, privatize essential public services, and accelerate the race to the bottom on wages in the US and all over Central America.

WTO authorities played down the significance of the new stalemate in the Doha Round of talks and the threat hanging over the sixth ministerial conference in Hong Kong. But civil society organisations see the multilateral trade system's latest fiasco in a much more serious light.

Reports of the state of thenegotiations were given by the chairpersons of negotiations on agriculture,NAMA, special and differential treatment, trade facilitation, services, etc.

The passage of the Central America Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) in the U.S. House of Representatives late last night signals a major setback for U.S. sugar farmers and a damaging blow to Central American farmers

The talks on non-agricultural market access(NAMA) are at an impasse on key issues and the consultations at the WTO this weekcould not come up with agreement, according to Ambassador Stefan Johannesson ofIceland.